education
clock | June 22, 2006 This is an early post of mine concerning the approaches to teaching science. It was first published on March 15, 2005. I have employed both of the methods described in this post since then. The jigsaw puzzle works much better as it is more fun. I have described how it actually went in the classroom here:
A few days ago, PZ Myers of the Pharyngula fame (not the pharyngula stage, though - much more advanced in development) wrote a post (that links to this article about creative ways to teach scientific method:
"I found that I had to teach the nature of science at both
the undergraduate…
clock | June 21, 2006I am a science teacher. I think I am actually a pretty good science teacher. So, it came to me as a surprise as how much I was baffled by the new SEED AskTheScienceBlogger question:
What makes a good science teacher?...
The answer, I guess, depends on the precise definitions of the words "makes", "good", "science" and "teacher".
[read the rest under the fold]
Is this the question about inherent talents shared by the good science teachers, or the methods one may use to turn a lousy or mediocre teacher into a good one?
Being extroverted helps. Being a natural performer helps. Loving…
clock | June 21, 2006New Teaching Carnival (HigherEd) is up on Raining Cats And Dogma.
The latest edition of the Carnival of Education is up on Why Homeschool.
Bird-themed Carnival of Homeschooling is up on HomeSchoolBuzz.E
clock | June 21, 2006Again, Janet has an update:
At last count, we've gotten $12,325.59 (not counting the $10,000 match from SEED) from 152 generous donors -- that's an average of $81.09 per donor.
There is more, and hopefully more people will donate between now and July 1st.
clock | June 19, 2006There is another science blogger joining us in the DonorsChoose fundraiser. Check out the challenge set up by Deep-Sea News blog.
Pharyngula has closed the challenge, so you can help other bloggers complete their challenges now.
clock | June 19, 2006Sandra Porter was out of town, but now she's back and she is joining the DonorsChoose drive - the 20th scienceblogger to do so. Furthermore, she is adding some cool new prizes to the prize pool - check 'em out. Go to Sandy's challenge here.
Also, one of the non-scienceblog science blogs - the Northstate Science is joining the drive. Check out their projects.
Seven of my 25 programs have been funded so far, including the donations from five of my readers with a total of $582.52. Thank you!
Update: Janet has the full update on the SB drive.
mikethemadbiologist | June 17, 2006I go for a walk, and watch some soccer, only to find out that Thursday, the South Carolina Education Oversight Committee passed 'standards' that force students to "summarize ways that scientists use data from a variety of sources to investigate and critically analyze aspects of evolutionary theory." I have to hand it to the creationists: pushing this during the summer, when university faculties are off doing science, is probably the right time to do something like this. Too bad it will make the kids of South Carolina ignorant and stupid. Teaching the basics of evolutionary biology is hard…
clock | June 17, 2006My readers have, so far, raised $557.52 and fully funded two of the 25 challenges [update: five of 25]! Way to go! Thank you. There is still plenty of time until July 1st to fund some more science teachers and their underprivileged students. Janet has an update on the entire ScienceBlogs challenge.
Apparently, readers of Pharyngula have already met and exceededthe goal after just two days!
Greta and Dave are matching your donations to their causes.
David and Benjamin will publish your haiku!
Ten copies of SAMS Teach Yourself Blogging in a Snap have been added to the prizes pool, so…
drorzel | June 17, 2006Via coturnix, the tremendously depressing resignation letter of a public school teacher in North Carolina. It's a rotten note on which to discover what looks like a pretty good blog.
The racist comments and inappropriate sexual remarks desribed in the letter are really pretty disturbing. I wish I could say it was surprising, but sadly, it's not.
Anyway, if you want to know some of the reasons why they have a hard time getting good people to go into teaching, take a look. No school pays well enough to put up with that sort of crap.
clock | June 16, 2006I am sorry to hear that First Year Teacher is leaving my state, but after reading the Resignation Letter, I understand why.
clock | June 15, 2006Janet has the update on our educational fundraiser. People are pitching in, a little bit of money at a time. But....but, where are my readers?! Only $10 so far?! Come on - I know you can do better than that! Click here:
Help public school kids through my DonorsChoose challenge!
clock | June 15, 2006This Monday night I taught lecture #7 of the 8-week Intro Biology course (adult education at a community college). First, I gave them their Exam #2 (on Diversity, see my lecture notes on those topics here, here and here). The flat distribution of the first exam has now turned bimodal: some students are making big improvements and I will probably end with a nice cluster of As and Bs, while other students are falling and may end up with a few Ds and Fs, with nobody left in-between.
Then, I continued with the physiology topics. The week before, I covered nervous, sensory, endocrine and…
clock | June 15, 2006This is my first ever post on education. I wrote it on the John Edwards' primary campaign blog on December 23, 2003, and later re-posted it on http://www.jregrassroots.org/ forums. I republished it on August 23, 2004 on Science And Politics and republished it again on December 05, 2005 on The Magic School Bus. It's time for it to move into the new archives here:
Why does one so often hear that education can be improved by concentration on three Rs: reading, writing and arithmetic? The way this is usually implemented is by giving students exercises in these three areas, then giving them…
tqa | June 15, 2006
Pick a Scienceblogger - any Scienceblogger - and you'll find someone who loves science, and thinks that everyone should be exposed to it. That's one of the reasons that we spend time hammering out these posts. We also, as a group, have this funny belief about science education. We think it's important. We think that it's a good thing for children to learn about the way their world works, and we're all for anything that helps with that.
That's why there are, as you may have seen on the main Scienceblogs page, a whole bunch of us clamoring for your money right now. We're embarking on a…
mikethemadbiologist | June 15, 2006So Dr. Free-Ride convinced a whole bunch of us to do something altruistic and decent (damn philosophers...). We're raising money to help school teachers fund small educational projects for their students. You can find all the ScienceBlogs participants here. My challenge is to raise around $5,000. And if you donate, you're entered into a contest to receive some geeky really cool ScienceBlogs swag.
Click the button or here to donate to my challenge. You don't need to donate much; even five or ten dollars can help through the Mysterious Aggregation Powers of the Internet (and please send…
clock | June 14, 2006Amanda reviews the lies about sex and contraception that are peddled by the Catholic church in their pre-marital classes:
Pandagon goes undercover the lazy way on a Catholic anti-contraception seminar
and
Pandagon goes undercover the lazy way on a Catholic anti-contraception seminar, Pt. II
clock | June 14, 2006Henry and Janine Cate of Why Homeschool will be hosting the next edition of Carnival of Education. If you write something appropriate for this carnival by by 7:00 PM PST on the Tuesday, the 20th of June, send your entry to them at: cate3 AT panix DOT com
drorzel | June 14, 2006Rob Knop talks about a great teaching moment: A student who refused to just smile and nod:
I was very grateful for that student. You see, when professors ask, "do you understand that?", it's not a test. It's not the professor trying to catch the students up in admitting to being confused, it's not the professor trying to sepearate the good students (Hermiones) from the bad students, the latter being the ones who will admit to struggling with the material. When we ask the question "do you understand that?" we ask it because we want to, yes, find out if the students understood what we just did…
clock | June 13, 2006Carnival of Education #71 is up on What's it like on the Inside.
Carnival of Homeschooling #24 is up on About: Homeschooling.
drorzel | June 12, 2006One of my least favorite end-of-term rituals for faculty is the dreaded student course evaluations. These have two components: the numerical bubble-sheet evaluations, which provide the pseudo-quantitatvie evaluation used to compare courses, and written responses to a half-dozen very general questions. The latter are at least potentially more useful, particularly when the standard questions are supplemented with some class-specific questions, and end up providing some of the most useful feedback on my teaching (though this sometimes includes things I can't do much about, such as the student…